Usually the airlines' own websites offer the best deals but I'm amazed that some people don't check them out. In my case(though I love trains, but I can't always travel in trains :( ), I first look out for the lowest fair/s & check out the respective airlines' website, which usually offer better deals than online travel firms.

It's fatuous to book flight tickets through online travel firms without having a look at the respective airline's fare.

Back in 1990s, I used to think that customers will become more pragmatic & frugal as internet penetration would increase but looks like they need to be made cognizant of how the online travel market functions. Later they'd realize that they have been squandering all along.

Sounds to me like airlines will ditch the portals and let google become the aggregator, funded by ad revenue. Google then can compare prices, display ads, and send customers directly to airline sites, trashing the whole industry and dramatically increasing their revenues. If I were Expedia, TripAdvisor, or Travelocity, I'd be scared as well.

Just tried Hipmunk.com. Great idea, but it failed two tests. I am served by two provincial Danish airports, which makes life difficult. First test: how to get to Damascus. First Hipmunk tried to send me to BEY, claiming that this was Damascus (it is actually Beirut). When I insisted on DAM, it said "no flights found." Not true--it can be done; it's just difficult. Second test: how to get to London. The correct answer is direct flights on budget airlines, but it didn't look at those, and therefore wanted to send me on much longer indirect flights. If Hipmunk can fix these problems, though, I'll be a fan.

Google and Compete released a study last year citing that nearly 40% of US travelers do NOT have a destination in mind when searching travel, though ultimately I think leisure travelers' decisions will continue to be increasingly driven be price. So long as travel portals/booking sites continue to promote discounted travel, they'll see healthy traffic even if consumers do not see a distinction in experience or value between them.

It would be a mistake for most airlines to pull out of travel portals. Do you expect users to compares prices by going to each airline site separately? Though I understand that the margins of portals may come under pressure.

Well, what would online travel companies do if Airlins started offering large selection of hotel stays on their websites?
ANA and JAL has both started doing so domestically, and it won't be long before they expand abroad.....

Another contender is Hipmunk.com because it addresses an issue mostly neglected by competitors: visual organization. It is my favourite website to figure out a flight schedule and the prices seem as good as anywhere else (over time, they seem to have equalized).